From Isolation to Collaboration - Amber Nelsen & James Block

Home learning assignments in the COVID-19 world are not what will be remembered but, instead, it will be the way we made our parents and students feel.

We actually have a wonderful opening into our students’ lives through daily, interactive, small-group video lessons that allow us to personalise their learning. Now is the time to break down the stigma of the EL in the “Multilingual” International School and, instead, to celebrate the mother tongue as a necessity and strength for collaborative learning.

Is now really the time for students and parents to be unpacking instructionally complex assignments? Instead, couldn’t this be a time of connection for parents, students and peers, encouraging them to explore and support one another through the strengths of their culture and language.

This time is a chance to have conversations with parents that addresses the stigma in our international community, in which some are not yet able to recognize the 1st language as a source of strength and importance for our students. Let’s consider how parents can actually be an asset in these times, helping their children to build ideas and notions that they have previously only permitted them to do so in English. Do most still sadly believe that English is better?

We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.